Eat my Thoughts

I was set to write a congratulatory comment about the senate actually doing its job and rejecting the government’s attempt to pass through completely unnecessary changes to Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Aside from commenting that considering its inaction in many more pressing areas, it seems odd that the government should consider this bill any kind of priority, I won’t go into detail with my objections to the proposal to make it easier to offend and humiliate people based on their race, as I have discussed it further in a separate post. Although any time you allow Barnaby Joyce to sound like the voice of reason for your party, as he did for the Coalition on this issue, you should probably reconsider your position.

The recently-held inaugural Matthew Millhouse Salute was a very rewarding experience for myself and others who had been close to Matt. It was also a lot of fun and I am looking forward to working towards making next year’s event even better.

In the lead up to the event, I spent a bit of time thinking about my friend and what his loss meant to me two years on. It still hurts. I don’t think that’s ever going to stop entirely and I’m not sure I want it to. I sure as hell don’t want to forget.

I can’t say I have agreed with Jeff Kennett on all (or even most) of his public statements but I have to say I have always had respect for his political courage and leadership (doubly so after the experience of Malcolm Turnbull supposedly in charge). I was listening to news radio the other day- must have been ABC because they didn’t mention reality TV non-personalities once- and they were running a story about the Australia21 group’s call to decriminalise a number of illicit drugs.

Elon Musk’s intervention into the national energy debate was timely last week. Call me a pessimist if you will, but I don’t have high expectations of Musk being taken up on his offer to solve the South Australian power uncertainty issues within 100 days, even with the money back guarantee he offered. Just because the man says it can be done, doesn’t mean it will be done. There are still plenty of details to be worked out around the economics and there are also Australian technology companies who claim they could provide the same capacity (but who have been ignored by a government which is considering changing the Clean Energy Corporation’s charter to allow it to invest in coal).

A slow clap to the people of Western Australia. Giving well-deserved simultaneous black eyes to the pathetic Liberal government that has so failed them so comprehensively and to the deceitful opportunism of Pauline Hanson is an impressive feat in today’s political climate.

But while I allowed myself some relief that the ‘silent majority’ that Bernardi and Hanson claim to speak for looks more like a tiny minority, I am not getting to carried away with celebrations around the impending national fall of either One Nation or our hard right Coalition government. The eulogies (which if based on the maxim that, “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all,” will have to be very short) can wait a little longer.